If you have a great idea for an eCommerce site, you need to know how to market it first. It can be difficult to navigate the different marketing options when you're completely new, but in most cases, you may only need to concentrate on two or three tactics to make it work. All online marketing methods have their pros and cons, and some tactics might be better suited for your objectives, budget, and the amount of effort you're ready to put into them. Let's take a look at some of the best online marketing methods for eCommerce sites.
SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is something all eCommerce sellers should learn even before they start their business. We call it a marketing method, but really, all sites should be optimized for search engines as it's the most efficient way to get organic traffic to your site.
Many things will affect how high your site will appear on search engines. Your site's navigational structure is one of them. The performance of your site and the level of engagement of your visitors will also make a difference. But probably the biggest predictor of how high your website's pages will appear in search engines is the number of high-quality links pointing to your site. So, you will either have to build these links yourself or hire someone to build them for you.
Here, we would suggest that you hire a team, but you have to be careful to use a whitehat link building service. A whitehat link building service will build links by publishing highly relevant content on high-quality websites and integrate links naturally into the text, whereas a bad link company will use shady tactics like posting on irrelevant directories or using link farming schemes. So, verify the tactics that they use and get access to a full report of your links to know where they're posted.
PPC
PPC is the second method that you need to learn. PPC is an extremely powerful tactic for eCommerce because it allows you to bid on certain keywords, have your ad appear, and pay only when people click on the ad. Each click can range from a few cents to a few dollars depending on how popular and/or relevant the keyword is. And paying more will usually give you more visibility, but it’s not always the case since the relevance of the landing page and the overall quality of the website will play a role as well.
The key is to target a wide range of keywords and know how much a lead is worth for you. You can then start tweaking your strategy until you find something that allows you to get sufficient traffic while keeping a solid margin.
Email Marketing
The third tactic on our list is email marketing. What makes email marketing so powerful is that it’s great for building loyalty. You can follow up with your previous clients and let them know every time you have a sale. You can send them an instant discount by email if they abandon a cart to sweeten the deal. Or you can rally thousands of people for a new product launch at a touch of a button. So, learn the different email marketing platforms and the different tactics you can use to maximize your efforts.
These are three of the most important marketing tactics that you have to master as an eCommerce business owner. If you manage to understand these inside and out and choose the right niche, it will be hard for you not to succeed.